


if the sea could dream

by icicaille



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Fantasizing, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26777866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icicaille/pseuds/icicaille
Summary: “Where will you go, Francis?” James says. “When we’ve returned home?”
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 46
Kudos: 106





	if the sea could dream

“Where will you go, Francis?” James says. “When we’ve returned home?”

Silence, punctuated only by the sounds of their bodies: James’ breath whistling through a bone-dry throat, Francis shifting on the adjoining cot.

“ _Francis_ ,” James says again, cracking halfway through. “If you would indulge me, please.” He rises on his elbows. “I beg you. One last indulgence. That’s all.” The left corner of his mouth is wet. He touches it with his tongue haltingly. Three sores split in as many hours.

“Hush, James,” Francis says. He grasps James’ arm with a light hand. Coaxes James down, down until he settles back on his cot. “Yes. I was only thinking.”

“To Blackheath, I imagine,” James says to prompt him. “You stayed with Ross before we set out, did you not?”

“Aye, I did. But there was only one child, then, and I fear I might be a bother with more running underfoot. Could be I go with Tom to Whitby; he’s always begging me to do. His girls are near grown, anyway.”

“To Whitby with you, then. It’s decided.”

“Oh, ‘twas only a thought,” Francis says, equivocal. “I’ll settle for any room with a feather bed and regular visits from a washerwoman.”

James holds his tongue, does not inquire: _And Miss Cracroft?_ But because he has left shame behind on the shale, along with the rest of his trinkets and titles, he says, “Or to Brighton, with me.”

A long lull while Francis considers. “Oh?”

James hurries to soften his presumption. “An invitation, of course, not an obligation. But you told me once you’d never been, and perhaps you might wish to see it—a town of great splendor and commerce.”

“I would, very much,” Francis says, and James’s heart releases him from its clutch. “We would lodge with your brother?”

“Yes, and Elizabeth, his wife. And the children, Lizzie and Will.” James last kissed their cheeks when he’d quit Brighton for Woolwich. Lizzie, already a miniature of her mother at five; Will, squealing and rosy-cheeked in his white gown. This time, James will be a proper uncle to them. No errant comings and goings, no graceful escapes from the drawing room when tears begin to spill. “Their house and two dozen of its ilk—all limestone, quite grand—form a half-moon around a little grassy park. Lewes Crescent, they call it. Scarcely a hundred paces from the shoreline. The view from the top floor bedrooms—nothing but sea and sky. Puts one’s mind right at ease.”

“You’re sure the family would not object to my being there?”

“Good lord, Francis, they’d adore you, if only for your talent of being able to curb my chattering at dinner,” James says, waiting for Francis’ faint laughter. He forges on when it comes. “You and William would get on smashingly, you know. A _bad radical_ , he’s christened himself.”

“Is that the only company I’m fit for?” Francis asks. By the lilt there, James knows that mischievous brow must have winged upward. “ _Bad radicals_?”

“Indeed.” James coughs again to dispel the ragged edge in his speech. It is more than he’s spoken in days, and he is paying with abrasions that will never heal. “Now, you incorrigible man, will you permit me to sketch this tableau?”

“I suspect I could not dissuade you even if I cared to,” Francis says. “God knows I could never deter _James Fitzjames_ from a course he’d fixed his eyes on.”

Jests are still a new and fragile thing between them, and even this one sets James alight. He will let the untruth lie for it. Dissimulate. Conceal the singular course he has indeed fixed his eyes on. “Then I shall brook no further diversions. We’ve arrived just after dinner, having taken the five o'clock from London Bridge. We are rather peckish at this hour, are we not?” 

“We are,” Francis allows. “Some cold sandwiches wouldn’t go amiss.”

“In the morning, refreshed, we’ll set out for the Royal Pavilion, I think. Have you read much of it in the _Times_?”

“No,” Francis says. “Tell me.”

Though James is long past stitching together stories for his own burnishing, he is dying, and it has made him sentimental. Soft in places where he thought himself hard, impervious to anxious affection. But he will not burden Francis with unlooked-for confessions or proclamations. Tonight, he will weave this fiction—this impossible future—to warm their cold hands and empty bellies. Leave himself behind, just for an hour or two, in the telling of it. 

“Water, please.”

Francis hands him the flask; James takes a sip. It does little to soothe, but he clears his throat and applies himself to his task. “The Royal Pavilion took some three decades to complete, and I’m told it cost nearly a million and a half. But the thing is nothing less than magnificent, Francis. Domes, towers, minarets so high they fair disappear into the clouds—a palace fit for a maharaja.”

“Little wonder you’re a keen admirer. Being a man of such modest tastes, after all.”

“Oh, stash it,” James chides, even as a smile bursts the chapped seam of his lips. “You shall eat your words when we are standing before the thing and you damn near faint from the grandeur. As retribution for your jibes, sir, I shall require that we visit the Brighton seltzers.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“In a park not far from the pavilion lies a charming German spa, established by some fellow from Dresden, where one can take the ‘seltzers.’ It is a most agreeable little haven—hidden away in an alcove of chestnut trees, where sun streams in patterns through the foliage.”

James sees it: Francis’ arm tucked in his elbow as they stroll down the dirt path. Francis murmuring nonsense into his ear, eliciting a smile. Francis warm against him.

He shakes himself. “The Püllna water for myself; I would suggest Carlsbad, I think, for you. A few glasses, and any debility that plagues you is clean gone.” 

But here, in this dreamed-up landscape, they would suffer no debility. No scurvy, no starvation, no bloody flux, no resurgent bullet wounds. They would be well, and James would be whole again. 

“Remarkable,” Francis says, in a tone that betrays his skepticism. “That a simple glass of water could have such powerful medical effects. Of course I yield to you, James.”

“Well, I’m afraid I must seek your forbearance a second time,” James says. “Would you mind terribly if we stopped at the tailor's on our way back to the house?”

Francis sighs, sounding put-upon. “Good God, man. Haven’t you enough togs to last you into your dotage?” 

“But they do the most marvelous set which I have coveted terribly for years! Coat, trousers, and waistcoat, all in umber and white plaid.” James cannot hide his eagerness. “I simply must have it.” He crumples the blanket in his fists, pretends it is fine linen that scratches his fingertips. Imagines himself tossing his hair and admiring the shape of his hips in the mirror while Francis looks on, indulgent. _How very handsome you look_ , Francis might say, if James had more luck than is owed any man in this world.

“I’m afraid that sounds rather garish,” Francis says. Perfectly casual in his teasing, insensible to the blush burning James’ cheeks.

“Ah.” James inhales, gathering his equanimity around him like a shroud. “Then I shall simply have to instruct you in the sartorial arts, Francis. And you have never seen me out of uniform, besides. I’ll have you know I cut quite a dash.”

“I do not doubt,” Francis says. “Regrettably, I am a weary old man who needs his luncheon lest he drowse in public.”

“Concessions for weary old men can be made. Very well!” James cannot resist clapping his hands in excitement. “We shall take the marine parade home—a mile-long promenade along the cliffside where the sea breezes may be enjoyed to perfection. And we must follow with a turn on the chain pier.” Anticipating Francis’ grousing, he says, “Yes, yes, your luncheon, I know, Francis. But the chain pair is a spectacular sight indeed! It extends so far out into the water, a thousand feet at least, that steam packets crossing to Dieppe make use of it for embarkment.”

To the very edge of the pier they would venture, arm in arm. Steady steel under their boots, the Channel a wide expanse of blue before them. Wrapped tightly into their coats, hair whipped about by the breeze. Francis’ gaze cataloguing the distant stretch of sea, knuckles wound tight around the balustrade, while James devours the sight of him.

As a rule, he enjoys observing Francis in repose. Seeing him stern, thoughtful, considering, plainly shouldering all the weight of Atlas. Admiring the slope of his nose, the hesitant set of his smile.

“Yea or nay, Francis?” James says, a touch nervous, when no reply comes.

Francis is quiet. “You love this place, hm? Brighton?”

“I do,” James admits. He has had many homes in his thirty-five years: Brighton, London, Rose Hill, a score of ships. But Brighton—he has forgotten its unique joys and amusements, the thrilling sensation of watching industry unfold. He has forgotten, too, that one can live on dry land with the sea for company. Two hands, bracketed by crisp calico cuffs, warmed by the fires of a grand house; one eye turned eternally toward the water.

An early retirement need not be dull; James is well-suited for this life. Perhaps Francis could be, too.

Yet Francis’ obligations surely lie elsewhere. Not in Brighton. Not by James’ side. He has clung too tightly to Francis, he knows, fashioned a chimera out of daydreams. “I suppose you’d tire of such novelties before the week is out,” he says, too quickly. “I shall book you on the Saturday afternoon train back to London, where you may resume your duties.”

“You would not accompany me back?” Francis says. "You would stay on there?"

“Yes, naturally. Where else would I go?” James does not admit it to solicit pity, or sympathy or largesse—any of pity’s ignominious cousins. He is adrift in the world. It is plain fact. His closest brother-officers are all wedded fathers; he has no relations in the world save William, who insists on showing more kindness to a bastard orphan than any halfway-sensible man ought to.

“Then I would appeal you to join me in Dublin forthwith,” Francis says. “My sisters will no doubt be clamoring to see my sorry mug again.” Easily, as though it is no great thing to bring James along. 

James has not considered the tail of this coin. “You’re certain? I would be honored, but—”

“Pity’s sake, James.” Francis reshuffles himself on the cot and tuts. “I swear to you, the company wouldn’t go amiss. Besides, their cooking for one man could comfortably fill five, six bellies. Rashers and boxty enough to make you forget you ever went hungry.”

“God in heaven, don’t speak to me of home cooking lest I weep.” James sighs, tasting bile in his mouth where meat and potatoes once lingered. It is no real matter, however—the cravings have already begun to wane. He is swift approaching a precipice in his illness, where pain tips over into a suffering so acute it will smash his appetite to atoms. “Which members of the prodigious Crozier brood would these be? How many are there of you? Fifteen?”

“ _Thirteen_ , James, for shame,” Francis says. “Martha, who must be close to seventy now. Then there’s Eliza, two years her junior, and Margaret, younger than me. I send them what money I can, but they’re spinsters, the three of them, so the house is modest. It is well-appointed, handsomely furnished, from what I recall, but—well, rather close quarters, you understand. And they’ll be damned if you have a moment to yourself before they’ve heard the latest scuttlebutt.”

“Are your sisters _gossips_ , Francis?”

“Christ, of the highest order.” Francis grunts. “Boon companions you’d be, the lot of you. Smoking your pipes in the kitchen, trading yarns into the wee hours.”

“While you glare at us from the doorway, roused from your sleep,” James supplies. 

“Precisely.”

“While I’ve no doubt these dear ladies possess enough charm to enchant the queen herself, I daresay a respite may be required in due course. Some solitary escape into Dublin.”

“A young thing like yourself all alone? Why, you require a chaperone,” Francis says. James can hear his grin. “As luck would have it, I should be very pleased to escort you.”

“Where?” James asks. _Where would you lead me?_ Francis need only extend his hand, beckon for James to follow. 

“Hm.” Francis makes a vague noise of deliberation. “To Howth Head. Do you know it?” 

“I don’t.”

“Howth is a coastal village northeast of the city, not much more than an hour by rail. Overlooking the village are a series of high cliffs in peninsular formation: the ‘Head.’ I have been there twice, and both times found it pleasing. The scenery is very fine.”

“Conjure it for me, Francis,” James says. This dream feeds on the particulars of sensation. Left to abstraction, it will not hold.

“Ah, my stories are no good. I could not hope to conjure the form of an apple, even, for one who’d never seen it before.”

“Please try, Francis,” James says. He is not above begging, for Francis has already seen him weak and weeping, cowed and pitiable. “Please. Won’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, of course, James. As you wish.” After a pause, Francis begins. “We’ve hiked up to the Head. There, we have an unbroken view of the Irish Sea, on all three sides, with green hills at our backs. The place is popular among travelers for good reason.”

“So I shall be obliged to share the vista with, hm”—and here James pretends to puzzle—“some bad-tempered old men, a scattering of newlyweds, and a dozen unruly children?”

Francis does not laugh, or scoff, or parry with a quip of his own. In a voice graver than James has heard all night, he says, “No, James. In my mind’s eyes, only you and I.” 

The canvas flaps in the wind like cracks of thunder. A lonely sound, as though heaven and earth were closing in around them. “Go on.”

“It is eventide. Below, the water is lit up in blue and purple; the clouds above are like rose-colored wings, and the bay is bathed in golden light. Ah, forgive me.” Francis stops, chagrined. “I have not your gift for poetry, James. My words are clumsy. But know: I would give you this.”

“I do not require poetry, merely truth,” James says. _Only you and I._ “Which you have never failed to offer me, whether good or ill. So I will give you mine in return.” To do this, he must be brave.

For Francis, he will be. 

“You have always known the shape of me, Francis. You knew the minute I boarded at Greenhithe what I was, and I do not begrudge you your antipathy, though I do wish we had been better friends from the start. And that day at the cairn—” He swallows hard. “It was as though I had scooped out my flesh, like an old rotting melon, and laid it all at your feet. You could have laughed at me. Told me I’d had it right all along, that I was a fraud. I was nothing, then. Empty. A shell. A mere carcass of a man. But when you put your hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eye, I was full—of what, I could not be sure, precisely, but I was bursting with it. I was not nothing. In your eyes, I was _someone._ God, you were so kind to me. You’ve no idea what— _Blast._ You make me feel—It is only that I feel so many things for you, Francis, I—”

Shame eats at James with rapacious intent. Carnivorous, even; the sensation descends deep into his marrow. He is unmoored. Blathering like a schoolboy. In a month, conceivably sooner, he will be buried under a mound of rocks, and still he is spending what little time remains on hysterical prattle. “And now I must beg your forgiveness. I am sorry to abuse your kindness, sully it with the sort of vulgarity—”

In the darkness, the questing touch of a hand against James’ own is startling. A shock of ice-cold water. A balm for all the horrors scurvy has wrought. When it lands, finally, Francis’ thumb traces circles across the back of James’ wrist. “Peace, James. None of that. I did not want to presume, but I had hoped. Very badly,” he says, which sends a heady thrum of pleasure down James’ spine.

“ _Only you and I_.” James measures the heft of the phrase on his tongue, assured by the slow, rhythmic pulse of Francis’ strokes. His own heart, beating double time, is no trusty barometer. “Tell me, then, Francis. If you could make it so.”

“If you’re certain, James. Well. I would— I don’t rightly know,” Francis says, faltering. “I told you, I’m no good at this.”

Above James, pinpricks of dim light pierce the latticework of lacings. “Would you take my hand?”

Francis’ thumb stills its circuit. “By your leave.”

“You need not seek it,” James says. “It is granted always. Now, and any moment hereafter.” The soft sweep of Francis’ thumb renews itself. “What else would you do?”

“If you looked at me like you did at the cairn—” Francis steadies himself with a breath.

“How did I?” James asks, though he knows as well as he knows his own name, the faces of his aunt and uncle and brother, the sheet-iron chill of a Congreve in hand. 

“As though you’d given yourself over to me entirely. Trusted me alone with your happiness.”

“I did,” James says, slipping his hand into Francis’ so their fingers entwine, “and I do.” 

“Then I would devote myself to you. As I have. As I will do until we can go on no longer.” Francis pauses. An eternity. “On that clifftop, before the eyes of God, I would take your hand and kiss it.”

“Where?” James murmurs. Quietly, like grass rustling in the fields. The whisper of shirtsleeves on sheets.

“Your thumb, first, and your fingers. Each knuckle in turn. Next, your palms.”

Flooded with a joy that robs him of words, James slips into memory. “Then _let lips do what hands do_ , for you are my own _dear saint_.” He has never had a _dear saint_ to call his own. No sweethearts nor companions. Could never have countenanced the offering it required—to be grasped by the root, plucked out of his gilded shell, and laid out for appraisal—from anyone but Francis.

“Who are you quoting at me now, hm?” Francis says. “Keats? Shelley?” 

“Should I have said, _What is all this sweet work worth if thou kiss not me_? There’s your Shelley; you may thank my tutor for the drilling.”

“Ah,” Francis muses. “Very fine words.”

“I should hope my prolixity has had some effect after all this time.”

“Have you been saving up a whole library of poems for this very occasion?” 

Francis’ tone is light, but James shakes his head, rueful, all the same. “I have never dared to imagine. Not truly. How could I, when our friendship was born out of nearly three years of acrimony?”

“Oh, James,” Francis says, sounding wounded. “If you knew how badly I regret all of it—”

James presses Francis’ hand to quiet him. “It is done, Francis. Do not fret.” The past cannot intercede here; James forbids it. Thinking instead of possibilities, he draws an unhurried breath and says, “But I will pardon you in exchange for that kiss, which I have not forgotten.”

Francis gives a low huff of laughter.

“Would you be bold? Kiss me atop that cliff?”

“No. I’d want you alone. Within four walls, behind a closed door,” Francis says, grave once more. “I’d take you back to the house. Hold your hand in mine as we climbed down the hill and into the harbor.” 

“And when we’ve returned?”

“To our room, straightaway.”

“And then?” James exhales shakily in anticipation. He will let Francis lead in this dance. 

“I would close the door.” Francis’ voice is raw, rasping. “Lock it. Press you against it. Kiss you, again and again.”

Their palms are twins, damp and sticky with sweat. James tightens his grip. “I could kiss you for hours,” he says. “I would be contented with that, if you did not want—That is to say, I would not ask you to—”

“I want to,” Francis says, as he squeezes James’ hand in return. “Everything. If you’ll have me.” 

James is weightless, floating on a sea change. His muscles are not racked with spasms; his bones no longer scrape against their sockets like finely ground glass. “Would you be a proper steward to me, then? Undress me piece by piece?”

“Diligently. Until you were bare before me, and I could look my fill.”

“ _Oh_ ,” James says, though it is closer to a sob. Astonishing, how violently it is punched out of his throat. “Please, Francis.”

“You would permit me to touch you?”

“Yes, my God.” Arousal has not visited in so long; it aches and thrills in equal measure. “Put your hands on me, for Christ’s sake.”

James feels inexhaustible, abundant in his desire. He twists on his side toward Francis, hungry to glimpse him, touch him—his face, his lips, every inch of him.

Then agony rips through James’ chest. The holes in him have erupted. When he tries to cry out, his ribcage—already tender, inflamed by this sudden conflagration—flattens the noise into a choked whimper. 

“James?” 

“It’s nothing; I’m fine,” James gasps out, curling onto his side. His joints burn with the motion. He can will it away. He _must_. “Nothing. Just—” For Francis’ sake, he buries the rest of his moans behind his teeth.

“ _James_. What is it?”

They had been so close.

“I’m dying,” James says, wrenching his hand away. Francis stiffens beside him, and the illusion crumbles. Shale eroding piecemeal under their feet. “Forgive me, I asked you to pretend, but—” Already James’ body is failing him. His chest heaves; his nose prickles traitorously. “I cannot invite you to Brighton, or accompany you to Ireland. Or kiss you, or lie with you.” Tears pool in his eyes. When he blinks, one wends its way down his cheek. 

He is younger and stronger than half of the men here, has walked more miles in a fortnight than many of them have in a decade. Yet he will be the first claimed by scurvy. There is no logic that impels it—except, perhaps, that God has seen him and found him wanting. Seen his lies and machinations and transgression of his natural station, and judged him fit for an undignified end.

Even now, he is grasping for something just out of reach. A shining token whose worth he has not earned. A man whose love—and James thinks, hesitantly, that it may be called this, that they can be sure of it now—he has never deserved. 

Another tear spills over.

“There’s time,” Francis says. “There _is_ time. I swear it to you.”

James’ breaths come sharp and frantic through his nose. “There isn’t. Weeks at best. I should have you told you earlier, I’m sorry; I’ve been so foolish—” 

“James. _James._ ” Francis utters his name—half a captain’s order, half a mother’s cradle song—and James falls silent.

“I haven’t finished yet, and it is something I’d like you to hear,” Francis says. “Now. I would wake the next morning and hold myself very still while you were sleeping, even though I could smell Martha’s rashers cooking downstairs, ready to eat. You would nestle into my arms just so. Warm, smelling of lavender and your damned macassar oil. I would wake you in fits and starts—gentle, though. Apply my lips to your hair, your eyelids, the lines of your cheek.”

A rustle in the darkness. James makes out the blurred silhouette of Francis sitting up on his knees. Then Francis’ figure is balanced on the edge of James’ cot. “Francis?”

“May I?”

James fumbles for Francis’ hand in answer. 

“That’s it, hm?” Francis says, soothing, as James makes room. 

It is so dark—and Francis is so close—that James cannot make out where their arms and legs must be housed, how they must arrange themselves on his narrow cot. He relies on the map charted by his wandering hands instead: the unstarched collar of Francis’ shirt; adjacent, the triangle of Francis’ throat, which flutters under James’ touch; the tip of a chin that will need shaving in the morning. James’ fingers encounter pearl, wool, linen as they roam further south. He opens his palm against Francis’ sternum, captures the beat of Francis’ thudding heart.

After a spell, they shuffle into place: Francis flat on his back, James’ head on his chest.

“Put your arm around me,” James says hoarsely. He feels Francis shift under him, and the searing pressure of Francis’ hand against his waist a moment later.

“Anything else I could grant you, I would do it without a thought. Anything in my power,” Francis says, sending tiny puffs of damp air into James’ hair. “You need only ask.”

He could have Francis’ mouth, his skin, the promise between his legs. Savor the weight of Francis atop him, or under him, or whichever way Francis prefers it, before his body turns to dust. A dream, James knows, that will not shatter upon waking.

But he has dreamt of Francis in warmer climes, too. Under laundered sheets on a summer morning, windows ajar to welcome birdsong and a cool breeze. It is safer and sweeter here, in this unbounded place, where their clock will never run out. This is where James will confine his longings—keep them stowed away, free from mortal cares and the necessity of ending.

“You have given me everything, Francis,” he says. “But if you could—” He hesitates. “Kiss me.” _One last indulgence_. One kiss, which James will cherish until he loses the very concept of it. “On the forehead. Or cheek, perhaps. Just—not my mouth.” He will not have Francis soiled by scabbing sores, loose molars, the scent of rot.

There comes the rustle of Francis turning beside him, then the brief press of lips against his forehead. They are as raw and rough as James’ own, but no less precious. “Like this?” 

“Yes,” James says, tucking his face into Francis’ shoulder, breathing him deep. “Like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Before you yell at me, please know that this is a choose your own adventure! Maybe they got rescued the very next day and everyone was totally fine! Who knows!)
> 
> Title from Carl Phillips’ “Cortège.”
> 
> You can find me on twitter at [icicaille_](https://twitter.com/icicaille_).


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